We had booked ourselves into the modern Hotel Sri Nanak in advance and at expense, but importantly they had a room, it was clean and I felt really ill by that point. Sitting in the reception area with our dusty rucksacks, I thought that I might do something quite original for me, and faint, but after a night of starvation, air-con, sleep and water I felt much better! On our first day in Delhi we visited the toilet Museum-naturally, but on day two we decided to see some more of the classic sights...
The India Gate, New Delhi.
Under the brickwork in the shade, wild beehives made the monument far more exciting! Taking advantage of the shade we applied some sunscreen, it was very hot!!!
The gardens were beautifully planted, and at times we were even free from the crowds!
We headed straight off to the Crafts Museum near Pragati Maidan, naturally a massive rickshaw journey across the city, ageing our lungs by the minute, but well worth it to reach the shady, leafy courtyard and see some classic Indian terracotta pottery that I was dying to find!
Below, a shrine of Aiyanar, a folk deity. There were many terracotta figures representing Aiyanar, his attendants and guards, made in Puddukottai, Tamilnadu.
Hand coiled and slow fired, a real skill to make, move and fire.
Was that a chipmunk on the top of the hat or a native squirrel? They made a really cartoony chattering noise to themselves, that was very amusing to listen to.
A hand hammered, shaped and riveted metal vessel.
Fantastic! Inside the museum were over 20,000 exhibits from all over India, including tribal masks, jewellery, textiles and metalware. It was really excellent.
A replica of a Rajwar farmers hut, in clay relief work. Contemporary, Pradesh.
Very clever birds indeed with their beady eyes on me as I watched them drink from the dripping tap.
I was very excited to see this terracotta work. We had planned to travel to West Bengal to see the actual village that I had researched and taught a week long clay workshop on, in Devon, based on the making of deities.
A huge deity plaque.
After our initial visit we returned to the craft shop to buy souvenirs because it sold products from all over India. I really loved the metalwork from Uttar Pradesh, having previously read about them and brought pieces in England. We also perused the stalls in the courtyard run by artists and crafts people.
Beautiful coiled and burnished terracotta.
Another of the wooden wheeled 'chariots' like the one we had seen on our wanderlust through rural Hampi.
Piggy's with tusks and serrated teeth.
Another, less fearsome carving on the chariot.
On the way back to the Hotel it was incredible to glimpse the Hanuman Temple for the first time...
It was on such a huge and busy road that we decided to make a special journey to see it specifically another time.
The next day we haggled with another rickshaw driver outside the hotel for a price to take us to the outskirts of Delhi to see the Bahai House of Worship - the Lotus Temple. We had first come across the Bahai religion in Samoa when we spotted a temple in immaculate tropical gardens whilst driving around the island. We were interested to see more of the Bahai temples. The journey in the rickshaw was almost an hour long, but well worth it.
A bit about the Bahai faith...
The temple was completed in 1986 and serves as the Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent. It has won numerous architectural awards. The architect was an Iranian called Fariborz Sahba. Inspired by the lotus flower, its design is composed of 27 free-standing marble clad "petals" arranged in clusters of three to form nine sides. It was stunning to finally see it in all its glory against the matt smogged out Delhi sky...
The Bahai philosophy revolves around universal peace and the elimination of prejudice. All faiths are welcome to pray or meditate silently according to their own religion.
It was a lot more of a bun fight to get near than the temple than in Samoa, but apparently it receives more than 50 million visitors a year, surpassing the Eiffel tower and the Taj Mahal in numbers.
Nine doors open on to a central hall, capable of holding up to 2,500 people. Slightly more than 40 meters tall, its surface is tiled in shining white marble, the temple seems to float above its nine surrounding ponds.
The major part of the funds needed to buy the land were donated by Ardishír Rustampúr from Hyderabad, who gave his entire life savings for this purpose in 1953. We wished that we had seen the Bahai temple in Panama while we were there, but after a bit more research, we are looking forward to seeing the ninth Bahai temple to be constructed in the world, in Santiago, Chile with Juan.
This was the actual colour of the pools of water outside.
It was very impressive to say the least.
After handing in our shoes and receiving a ticket, we lined up outside and were ushered in, in silence - quite a job to do in India, where getting actually silence seemed like an impossibility...but we were able to walk inside and sit for a time, in silence. I felt a real and true sense of calm and peace. The inside of the building was stunning (no pics allowed), and just as I was having a moment of pure tranquillity, Wiji poked me in the side! Lol, he wanted to go...
Relative calm
Our rickshaw driver for the day, had fantastic green eyes that seemed so out of place, but very beautiful. His face was ravaged from smoking beedies and the pollution. I wish I had asked for a photo of him proper. We hoped to see him the next day, and tried to arrange this, but he wanted to take us to an 'emporium' and he may have been put off by our refusal in favour of other suggestions...all a bit lost in translation between the three of us, sadly.
On a busy Delhi street in Connaught Place, a doogie tries to get some sleep, While we hunt around for some real lime pickle. After asking several people we follow their directions and find ourselves in a very poor area where the homeless and disabled beg and receive food. It was not the place to hand around.
Wiji looking like he is eating in a school cafeteria, but in fact after a bit of a search we found the Banana Leaf for a South Indian Thali. I still wasn't really hungry...
A visible, but slack and over weight police force was present at Connaught Place. We later learn that Sikh police forces were being encouraged to lose weight by taking part in dance-off competitions against other forces from neighbouring regions to win white goods prizes. It sounded hilarious.
Connaught Place, in the centre of New Delhi, was a vast roundabout that was big enough to be called Central Park. It had roads radiating off of it in all directions, that lead to immediate confusion with further outer circles named Connaught Circus and Middle Circle. The park was an area inhabited by the homeless and in contrast there were colonnaded buildings devoted to premium shops, restaurants, hotels and banks opposite the park. Connaught place was so large in fact that it was impossible to photograph it and actually capture it.
Oh really?
On foot Wiji took us to the Delhi branch of the textile shop Soma for one last look around. Then we caught a rickshaw on Connaught Place, and on the way back to our hotel, our driver took the time to tell us that we had beautiful teeth and skin and really laid it on thick in a comedy way for a bigger tip, it was classic, but no, his meter didn't work either-ha ha.
The spoils from the legendary Wenger's bakery, that had been running since 1926 on Connaught Place. It had the 'Russian' or 'Argos' system of choosing in one place, paying in another, then returning to the original counter for the goods. This performance meant that the shop was typically chaotic. It was also full of middle class Indians scoffing their cakes stood up in the shop, which was in fairness easier than on the street in full view of all the homeless people. We waited till later...
When we got back to our tiny, but clean hotel room. Mine was the highly recommended lattice fig tart, the rest were Wiji's. What a happy boy!!
The following day we headed for the chronically congested narrow lanes of Chandni Chowk, reputed to be the backbone of Old Delhi...well we had to see it, and see it we did, in all it's work-a-day glory and horror in equal measure as we braced ourselves under the protective canopy of the rickshaw, we were also framed as two obvious outsiders, thrust into the oncoming chaos on the roads and the close proximity of the staring pedestrians.
The entrance to a small street temple.
One of the many, hundreds of tiny streets in Old Delhi, leading off in every direction, where the light shone down in shafts because the buildings were so tightly packed together.
A superb firework display that I imagined Richard Long would really love!
Yes, run, run away! Tiny school children in clean clothes.
After looking around several streets at the many and unbelievably varied shops, we were unable to find the elusive 'Indian jewellery bazaar', but did see several tourist traps selling lots of silver jewellery at inflated prices to the Japanese. We gave these a wide birth and on deciding that we needed to get out of Old Delhi we tried to flag down a rickshaw. There were only cycle ones around and each time Wiji approached one the man would turn away or shake his head. It seemed that no one wanted to take us for ages, but we kept going and finally an old man who looked like he was on death's door wanted to take us. I thought that this was ludicrous as he was approx half my body weight and it seemed insane to ask him to cycle us both across Old Delhi, but he came after us pleading with Wiji, so eventually unable to shake him off we went with him. He heaved the peddles round in such a strenuous manner that I was sure we would never get going and was flinching at the shame of being driven by this old man.
The view from the rickshaw as our old man peddles away and we are the obvious object of ridicule from on lookers. In the distance in front, a glimpse of the wall of the massive Red Fort, dating from the peak of Mugahal power in the 16th century. The wall varies in height greatly and is surrounded by a (dried up) moat.
We gave him a big tip and really thanked him for taking us, which is why I guess he was so desperate for our business. We had a really rubbish and over priced lunch, before catching a rickshaw part of the distance back...
A cycle rickshaw carrying a mobile stall.
A mixture of traffic and a bit of clear road-how did that happen?!
Later we headed back to try and get a better look at the Hanuman Temple, on foot.
Naturally it wasn't that simple and after getting the rickshaw driver to finally stop we had to run across several lanes of fast on coming traffic to retrace our steps and get to where we actually wanted to be!
Here, underneath it!!
Apparently you could walk up inside it, but it dawned on us that it has a bit of a Bridgy carny feel to it, so we decided not to...It would have been a great place to get mugged though!
A bit of a trek back to the hotel, and continuing the 'carny' theme, Wiji stops for refreshments at this street stall.
Our hotel was in great location and as the evening fell the streets became jammed with more stalls being set up and some of the roads were closed making it quite pleasant to walk around in the cooler evening temps with less traffic.
The Sikh Temple near our hotel. This was beautifully lit in the evening.
1 comment:
What a great web log. I spend hours on the net reading blogs, about tons of various subjects. I have to first of all give praise to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an fabulous article. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only very few posses and honestly you got it. The combining of demonstrative and upper-class content is by all odds super rare with the astronomic amount of blogs on the cyberspace.
Post a Comment